


Picking up the stitches

by songofproserpine



Series: Krist's Reylo Fix-Its [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Fix-It, Nobody is Dead, Not Beta Read, Red String of Fate, Rey is No One, She certainly isn't a fucking Palpatine jfc, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:46:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofproserpine/pseuds/songofproserpine
Summary: Love is endless, and dyads are deathless.(A fic in which Rey did not watch Ben fade away, but did all she could to bring him back.)
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Krist's Reylo Fix-Its [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668721
Comments: 81
Kudos: 507
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics





	1. Episode X - Love is a many splintered thing

**Author's Note:**

> **Content Warning:** Descriptions of wounds and violence.

With the warmth of his kiss still kindling her lips, Rey opened her eyes, took a breath, and watched as Ben breathed his last.

Rey's body moved on instinct, as it always did when he was near. He was falling, and she would follow. She cradled his head, following him as he fell, fell. Her knuckles hit the ground, shielding him from the impact. Fear pricked her like a thorn, then it twisted, becoming a hook, becoming a tooth, becoming a claw, pulling and tearing and undoing every hopeful seam that stitched her heart back whole.

"No." Such a little word. Simple, small, solid. A single sound of defiance that could bend the stars. "No. No, no, _no_."

There was no grief in her voice, no fear, no trace of anything at all but the echoes of that one word. _No._ Hope, defiance--for what was hope at all but a rebellion against despair, against death, against the woeful dark?

With her left hand still firmly holding his, Rey slipped her right hand out from Ben's hair, brushed her fingers across his cheek, and then lowered her touch to his heart. She closed her eyes.

She could _feel_ the life in him, feel it like the smallest warmth of a cinder in the grate, like a stray spark bursting off a live-wire. She focused her mind on that spark, closing every thought and beat of her heart around that tiny, trembling light.

Ben's light. Ben's life.

Rey breathed in, in and in and in. There was no end to her breath. No end to the range of her lungs and the reach of her mind. She breathed, pulling Ben's last gasp from the air as if they were the frayed ends of unseen ribbons. She breathed, and pushed her thoughts, her power, the Force that was hers and hers alone no matter what a man said, along that delicate razor wire of scattering life.

"Come back to me." It was a command, not a plea. Rey would beg for nothing; she would expect only what the galaxy was expected to deliver: Hope, hope, hope. Life, light, hope, _him._ Wasn't she owed this? After a life of loss and barren air, a life built on shifting sand where no roots could grow, a life crouched inside the gutted hulls of rusting ships, crafting dolls out of old Rebel's relics? Didn't she deserve this _one thing?_

She did, she did. _I do._

And so did Ben.

For a moment, just a moment and nothing more, Rey felt _him--_ not Kylo Ren, that hardened heart and sad, smothered boy trapped in his bones, but him, _Ben._ Ben, so raw and vivid and viciously alive; Ben, as she knew him to be, knew him like the twin scar on her arm and the features of her face and every small detail of her body. Ben, as she wanted him to be: the boy without a home, the boy for whom all shelter turned sinister, even if it came from his family.

Rey gasped, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. That feeling faded, _Ben_ faded, but she would not let that be the end. She pushed her power with all the fury of her heart, and felt her head spin. She would find him, find him, have him, hold him, bring him back to the life he deserved.

"Come back," she hissed, rocking forward and back. Her fingers twisted on his loose, soft shirt, and she pressed down harder, as if she could force his heart to beat again just by willing it. "Come back, come back, come back, come _here._ "

The minutes passed. Again, that small spark of Ben came near to Rey, then faded. Again, she pulled and tugged and hauled the scattered gasps of his breath back towards where they sat. Again, she felt her lips tingle from the warmth of his kiss. Again and again and again she urged her power to obey, as if the Force were a loth-wolf she could seize by the ear, drag down to her feet, and demand it _hear._ This power had slept inside of her for so long, had carved a space for itself in her every cell, squatting for free inside her body. Now it would earn its keep.

Luke had once said the Force did not belong to the Jedi, that all life was bound to it, through it, and beyond. The Force was but a flow of water with tides no mortal could command, only navigate as best they could. Rey knew this. She did. But if she belonged to the Force, then it likewise belonged to her, and she would make it _work._

The minutes passed. Desperate, determined, Rey bowed her head until her trembling lips met Ben's forehead. "If you can't come to me, then I will go to you," she whispered. It was a vow too tender, too vulnerable, for a louder sound.

Rey shifted her thoughts from the spark of Ben's life to the darkness surrounding it. The light was there, _he_ was there, but so was death, or something very near to it. If she could not pull him through those grim gates, then she would pry them open and walk through them herself.

Rey pictured the Dark that devoured her love, imagined it as a sea, and dove in.


	2. Episode XI - The laces of life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this still isn't beta read so fjdsklfkdsl sorry
> 
>  **Content Warning:** Descriptions of wounds and violence.

If there is a world between worlds, then there is a shadow under the Dark, a gap in death where death cannot touch, a space between breaths where so much life thrives that it hangs suspended, in awe of itself. If there is a world between worlds, and a soul shared--not severed, not split--between two lives, then there is a power greater than death, that ancient, endless Dark.

That power is hope, for which Ben was named.

That power is light, who shared a purpose with Rey. She would be its king and commander, the hand that cast the light from which even shadows dare not follow.

Ben's spark was easier to feel in this deep and patient Dark. Rey followed it, her eyes forward and fixed to the ember of Ben's life. A small, red thread unfurled from every step she took and raced like a spill of blood to Ben's life and light, tethering them together. She would pick up this stray stitch, the lace of Ben's life, and bind it to her.

As she walked the line cast by that ribbon, Rey heard whispers and hisses, voices that were not familiar to her, but made the small spark of Ben's life flare and flicker with an almost eager desperation. They must mean something to him.

 _Is it possible to learn this power?_ A man's voice, thoughtful, troubled, with just the smallest thread of hope woven through. Rey shivered to hear it. She knew in the way only the Force can whisper truths that this man spoke of the same power she was using. Did he once seek it too? Did he ever find it?

And just who was he? It wasn't Luke or Han. _Is it B_ _en's grandfather?_ Who else was left?

If that was the case, was it some kind of Skywalker-Solo trait to stubbornly rebel against death? Rey fought back the smallest of smiles, happy to take part in Ben's family tradition.

The man's voice faded, and was replaced by a sudden burst of _feeling_ that almost stopped Rey dead. She cried out and heard and felt and saw red and red and red--red fires and shifting, burning earth; red eyes in a twisted face; red wounds and red blood and red flesh wrapped tight around severed bone. Rey breathed, gasped, choked. She could smell the flesh burning, could smell the molten fires, singing her throat and her lungs like kindling. She heard the man's voice again, a primal howl of hurt of horror, and clapped her hands over her ears.

It didn't help.

Rey breathed again, determined and desperate for clean air. Something cool and gentle crept into her mouth as she gasped, and her mind latched onto warmer things: the trembling touch of Ben's fingers against hers, his solemn, patient face as he listened to her pour out her heart and her worst, wicked fears; Ben's quiet voice as he begged, _"Please."_

"... Ben?" she whispered, opening her eyes. The spark of Ben's life that fluttered ahead was stronger now, and closer, less like a flicker of a distant star and more like a light at the end of a long, looming tunnel.

Rey's heart thundered in her chest, determined to turn every pulse into a victory march. "I'm coming for you," she said to the light. "I promise."

_I know._

The voice nearly stopped Rey's heart. She stumbled to a halt, bending forward with the power that voice had over her.

Ben's voice. Quiet and faint, but still solid and clear.

Tears burned in the corners of her eyes. She let them fall, clearing her sight, before walking forward again.

The stench of burning flesh and hissing wounds slid away, allowing Rey to breath easily once more. Her pace was faster now, invigorated by the sound of Ben's voice. The ribbon at her feet was wider now, less like a thread and more like a line carved through the dark.

Another voice rose up from the darkness.

 _You're going down a path I can't follow!_ A woman's voice, aching and scraped raw.

Rey frowned. That woman was afraid, and the echoes of her voice struck Ben's spark of life, gutting it for a desperate moment.

 _Not again._ Rey breathed, breathed and breathed and breathed, pushing that breath through the air to the scattered traces of Ben's life. She would follow where that woman could not. She would chase Ben into death and tear him free of it. She would, she could--she _was._

The woman's voice stopped short, and just as before, another burst of _feeling_ wrapped itself around Rey's body and bones and thoughts and swallowed her whole. A new vision enveloped her, somber and serene. Waves of dark hair framed around a pale face, frozen forever in the shape of death. White flowers like bursts of stars were placed in her hair, reminding all who looked on her of the light that defies the dark. The woman's hands were as white as bone, placed over the bodice of a dress as dark as the bruise-blue sky at twilight.

There was something familiar about this woman's face. The angle of her jaw, the tiny dollop of a beauty mark on her cheek. Ben had three of those marks, a delicate trio Rey had often thought--then dreamed, then hoped--to trace with her fingers and kisses. But it wasn't just Ben that Rey saw in this woman's face. Leia had the same high cheekbones, Luke the same nose.

"She's your grandmother," Rey whispered, tears burning in her eyes again.

The image faded as she spoke. The spark of Ben's life was brighter now, with tinges of silver and red like the surface of Jedha. Rey had seen the moon drawn in loving detail in the Jedi texts she'd salvaged from Ahch-To. A once holy place, sacred to the Jedi, home to kyber crystals, its holy city a victim of the Empire.

A new voice emerged from the dark. It was one Rey recognized. _Ben!_

 _Show me, grandfather, and I will finish what you started._ Ben's voice, distorted through the filter of his-- _Kylo Ren's_ \--mask.

It took Rey a moment to understand. What had his grandfather tried to do?

The truth was in her, ready to be heard. The power to defy even death. The power to stop the cold claw of the grave before it could close around a beloved's heart. The power to protect what you loved. That was the way to win, the _only_ way to win: saving what you loved. Victory, not vengeance. Hope, not hate.

_I will finish what you started._

"But you did," Rey said. She stumbled and then picked up her pace, turning a brisk march into a jog, then a sprint. Full and free and fierce. "You _did_ it, Ben. _You saved me_."

Rey's voice broke on the words, splintering into sharpened shards that pierced the Dark and held it bay. Her breath burned in her chest. Her heels stomped on the endless dark, and the red ribbon binding her to Ben's light spread wider and wider, no longer a ribbon but a road.

"You--saved me," she hissed, teeth clenched and heart hardened by hope. "And now--now I'll return the favor."

As Rey's voice shot through the dark, Ben's light grew bright, so bright. Not a moon anymore, but a sun, burning brilliantly in the Dark. He was close now, close, so close. Rey reached out her hand, fingers twisting and clawing in the dark, pulling on that light with all her strength--pulled and pulled and _pulled._

She thought of Ben's hand, blackened by his glove, hovering over her face as he Forced her to sleep. She thought of Ben's hand in the interrogation chamber, opening the door of her thoughts and peering in. But doors could be crossed on either side, and just as he saw into every corner of her mind, she saw into his. She thought of Ben's hand--ungloved and shaking, extending across the galaxy and through the Force just to feel her. She thought of that hand again, extended in a room lit red like a wound and glittering with embers. That hand, shaking once more, not with anticipation or adrenaline but _fear._

 _"Please,"_ he had whispered to her then, lips trembling as he spoke. _Please_ she'd heard in her dreams ever since that day, an echo that haunted her thoughts for hours on end. _Please._

The tips of Rey's fingers grazed Ben's light. She was so close now, so close, she could feel him--

"Please!" She screamed the word, "Come back to me, Ben! Come back! Be with me!"

The light was nearly blinding now. Tears flooded Rey's eyes, and she squinted, her head turning on instinct to take solace in the dark. Her hand drooped for a moment, just a moment--and then a large, warm hand closed around her fingers and held on tight.

Rey opened her eyes. Gone was the Dark, gone was that wound-red road threading her to Ben. Gone was Ben's light and the tears in her eyes. She was back on Exegol, on that cold, dark, dusty husk of a world, one hand clinging tight to Ben's own, with the other pressed to his chest.

No, not pressed. Held.

Rey blinked. Stared. _Saw._

Ben's smile was a shaky, sweet thing. Dimples framed his lips, creasing his face and bringing him to life in a way that Kylo was never free to be.

Hope burned in Rey's heart, but she felt no pain, no, nothing even close to it. Hope is a tender ache, a hurt that you cherish.

"Rey," he breathed. She felt the warmth of his voice on her lips. He said her name like a sacred word.

Rey pulled her left hand free and cupped Ben's face. His hand followed hers, shaping his touch around hers, holding her to him as if he could not bear to let go. Even so, his touch was gentle. Strong, steady, gentle.

"I got you," she said with a shivering laugh.

Ben's deep, dark gaze softened, glittering like a night studded with stars. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok now that all this shmoopy stuff is outta the way prepare urself for some emotional smut. merry reylomas bitches ☻♥


	3. Episode XII - Flowers on the razor wire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *makes vague handwavy gestures to canon* just ignore it for now thanks
> 
> happy yule and end of the year! thank you for reading the fic. may it be of some help ♥

When the mourning and celebrations were done--when Rey had a spare moment to herself, moments where the smile fixed to her face could vanish, leaving her to look as she truly felt--she retreated to the Falcon for a moment's peace. The first moment in days. She'd lost count.

Ben picked up the stitches of the abandoned thread lacing them through these new days. He kept track of the days since his return on Exegol, then their return to the Resistance, in little tallies scratched into the walls of the Falcon's halls. Rey counted them each time she came back to the ship, before collapsing on the nearest, softest surface that would make do for a bed. Five tallies. Seven. Ten. Fifteen. By the time the count reached twenty, Rey had had enough. Twenty scratches in all, one for every year of her life. It was time to move on. Time to leave.

"I'm leaving," Rey announced to Finn on the morning of what should be--would be--her twenty-first day orbiting the Resistance, a walking, talking, smiling trophy to remind them of their victory.

Finn studied her with careful eyes, his expression serious. "But you'll be back?" He sounded more certain than hopeful.

A flicker of guilt singed the bottom of Rey's heart. She hadn't told many people that she was leaving. Rose was first, because of course she was. Finn was the second and last. Not even Ben knew the plan.

Rey did not bother to shake her head. She simply looked into his eyes and waited for him to understand.

Finn took in a breath and stood up straight. "Rey--" he began.

 _Now_ she shook her head. "If you want to get in touch with me, ask Rose," she said, flipping up her hood--once white, once crisp, now tattered, frayed, stained with blackened dirt and soot and the rusty smears of sweat and blood. Rey reached out to squeeze Finn's arm, but pulled her hand back before he could trap it there. "Give me some space, Finn." She paused, not wanting to ask for permission.

After a moment, Finn nodded. He looked as tired as Rey felt, but there was a gentle understanding writ in the lines of his face. Finn always understood--it was why he was so jumpy, so eager, so quick to act on a feeling. Maybe some more time with Rose would help him learn how to think them through.

"I'm here if you need me," he said. Ah, maybe he didn't understand.

Rey pressed her lips down tight to keep them from trembling. "I appreciate that," she said.

She felt his eyes on her back as she turned to march to the Falcon. There were no tears.

Rey and Ben took turns tallying the days as they traveled among the stars. By the time they reached the ninth mark, Ben popped a question that had lurked between them since the moment they took to the stars.

"For how long?" he asked one evening, lifting up his arm so that she could tuck herself against his chest. Rey decided on straddling his hips instead, and lay down on his chest, ducking her head to fit under his chin. After a moment, Ben carefully closed one arm around her, then the other, holding her tight.

"A while," she said, listening to the sound of his heart. Rey hadn't noticed before, but their pulses were in sync. Each breath mirrored the other, each thump of the heart a perfect, fitting match. Had it been that way before? Or was that new, now that he was fully hers and she his?

Ben considered this. His large, warm hands spanned her back and moved in slow, small circles. She hoped he found as much comfort in touching her as she had in being touched. "Never had an open schedule before," he mused with just a touch of humor. His voice rumbled against her ear in a low purr. "Wonder what that's like."

"We can find out together," Rey said as she smiled. Ben shivered for a moment, feeling her lips move across his skin.

Rey turned her head to kiss his throat, and hummed as he relaxed against the warmth of her mouth. She bit her lip and pushed herself back, her gaze nervously flickering over Ben's face until it settled on his dark eyes. "Let's lay low and quiet for now, until we get sick of it."

"If that's what you want," he said.

Rey frowned. She propped her chin in her hand and tapped her fingers against the firm muscles of Ben's chest, mimicking his--their--heartbeat. "What about what _you_ want?" she pressed. She did not look away, did not break their stare.

The apple in Ben's throat shifted. He curled his hands around Rey's waist in a loose grip, ready to release her if she moved. "I want..." his voice broke around the word like an egg bleached by the sun and fragile from years without warmth. Ben cleared his throat and tried again. "I want the same thing you do," he said at last. The words spilled out of his mouth, but his gaze glittered with determination.

Shifting until she was level with his face, Rey let her dark hair tumble around them, forming a brown veil in which they could hide. She cupped his face with her hands--how small she looked against him, and how completely he surrendered to her touch--and let her thumbs trace the edge of his lips.

"Good," she whispered, lowering her eyes to that large, generous, utterly kissable mouth. Ben's lips quivered under her touch, not in that halting, stuttering way that Kylo used to hold back his heart, but in a new way: tender and tempted and utterly enthralled.

Well if Ben could be vulnerable, then so could she. Rey lifted her eyes back to Ben's gaze and felt her heart swell against her chest. How could he look at her like that, as if there was nothing more lovely in all the worlds surrounding all the stars in the galaxy? As if he had looked up and out into the dark sky and found his heart and soul waiting for him there, across the stars? How could she ever pay back a loving look like that--or was she in his debt at all? What if this was simply how they were now, and were always meant to be: open and tender and far from any feeling like fear?

Ben's chest rose as he pulled a long breath down into his lungs. Rey lifted with the movement, the hard muscles of his chest meeting the soft swell of her breasts. She moved her thumb along his bottom lip, tracing the edge of it. She could feel his body hum with anticipation, could feel it the same way she felt her own eager need churning in her heart.

His throat moved again as Ben lowered his eyes to Rey's mouth, and whispered her name. "Rey..."

She heard what he did not ask, did not say. _May I kiss you?_

Their second kiss was not like their first. The first was fierce and lingering, held breath and still lips, as if to preserve the moment for as long as their breathless bodies could last. This kiss was slow, lingering, almost lazy. They had time and they knew it, time enough to do as they pleased, time enough to do nothing with that time at all except to breathe and be together, together.

Just as he had done with the first kiss, Ben pulled Rey tight to his body and held her there, using all his strength to be gentle with her. Their lips parted briefly, just enough for them to breathe, before Rey tilted her head and leaned in for another kiss, then another, another. They were graceless kisses, a testament to lack of experience made up for by a desire to learn and learn fast.

Bold and brave and just a touch impatient, Rey gripped Ben's chin firmly between her fingers and flicked her tongue against his lips. They parted with a hushed groan that sent shivers down Rey's back. She murmured gently against his mouth before leaning down to kiss him again, using her tongue to deepen it.

Rey wasn't the only one growing impatient, but years of keeping his emotions under the hard heel of rage made Ben hide his better. No matter. She would teach him through example.

Breaking the kiss with a fierce hiss, Rey tossed her hair over her shoulder and got to work tearing off her overcoat. Her elbows got caught more than once in her haste to cast the cloth aside, and she cursed quietly, annoyed.

That anger faded when she pulled off the underclothes wrapped around her breasts and let it fall to the floor like a ribbon unbound. Ben was watching her carefully, gratefully, gladly. Rey could _hear_ his heart quicken, pushing his breath up and up and up from his lungs to his throat, past his parted lips. She saw the fire in his gaze and used it as kindling. Her fingers flew as she knelt above him, pulling down her trousers and wriggling free of them with short kicks.

There was nothing between them now but their hunger--and Ben's clothes.

His long black undershirt came first. Never moving his eyes from her face, Ben reached back to grab the collar of the shirt and yank it over his head, mussing up his dark, wavy hair. Rey took the shirt from him and dropped it down where her trousers and tattered, once-white overcoat lay.

Ben paused, his eyes firmly fixed to her face. Rey had the strange feeling he was determined to keep them there unless given leave to do otherwise. His hands returned to her waist, fingers poised over the small of her back. "Should I keep going?" he asked, his voice small.

Rey blinked, surprised. "Well--yes, yes you should," she said. She hadn't expected him to hesitate, let alone ask for permission.

"All right." Ben paused again, looking pointedly at Rey's knees, which were still pressed firmly to either side of his waist.

Rey dropped her eyes down. "Oh. I'll--I'll move." She climbed off him and sat back on her heels, her fingers twisting in her lap.

Ben ducked his head, his eyes obscured by a wave of dark hair as he arched up to remove the rest of his clothes. A faint tinge of rosy-dawn red burned in his cheeks, matching the fire Rey felt in her own. At least she had years of sun-warmed skin to help hide her blushes. Ben was so pale and light-starved after a lifetime under a mask and out in the darkness between stars that all his blushes were as easy to see as the red salt on Crait.

The bed huffed as Ben returned his full weight to it. He twisted his long fingers in the sheets, playing with them idly as he glanced over to Rey.

Rey did not hesitate. She knew what she wanted, and would figure out the best way to get it to make them both happy.

Planting her knees on either side of Ben's waist, Rey settled against him and leaned forward to kiss his throat. She was more aware of his body now than she ever had been before, all its strength and warmth and scars. She skimmed her teeth along the front of his throat before replacing it with kisses, savoring each sound of Ben's soft moans.

Ben slid one hand up Rey's back to sink his fingers into her hair, gently urging her to look up at him. She did as he silently asked, turning her face up to meet his kiss. Their tongues touched again, sending a burst of fire down her chest, through her belly, and lower still, pooling in the space between her legs and igniting every nerve. She shivered--and so did Ben.

One heart in two bodies. Two hearts filled with the same need. The same need that could be shared and shown in so many different ways--kisses and touches and the gentle press of teeth, clenching hands, murmured words and soft, sudden sighs.

Ben's body was ready when Rey's was; she felt the fire in her nerves and knew it burned in him, too. There was also the far more obvious tell of his hard length between her legs, one on which she shifted forward and back with increasing speed and need, but Rey wasn't sure what should happen next. Daydreams and the flowery prose in battered copies of galactic romances she and Rose shared to kill time gave Rey a pretty good checklist of what to do, but nothing on how it would feel.

She moved without hesitation, for all fearful things must be met with eyes forward and hands steady. She sat up, reached down to curl her fingers around Ben's cock, and guided the tip inside.

They both gasped. Rey was ready, more than ready, but she would move no further until Ben gave some indication he was the same.

Rey steadied her hands on Ben's chest, holding herself in place. His eyes were open wide, the blush in his cheeks still rosy, still present, and still so damned sweet.

"More?" Rey asked, stroking his chest with her fingers.

Ben nodded quickly. Strands of his dark hair scattered across his face like fragments of shadows. Rey reached up to wipe them aside. She wanted to see him, no shadows, no masks, no obstructions. And she wanted him to do the same to her.

"Yes?" Rey asked, wanting a clear answer. Her thighs tensed under her weight.

"Yes, more--please."

The plea was soft, softer than a sigh. The tenderness of it took Rey's breath away, but it was a breath she found again quickly as she lowered herself inch by inch onto Ben's cock. She got halfway down before she stopped, adjusting to the new feeling. She felt so warm and _full_ , and there was still so much more of him to take. Rey wondered what Ben was feeling now, if he also felt so perfect and complete and still so full of need. She didn't have the breath to ask; all her air was spared for quiet gasps and softer rhapsodies, all of which took the shape of Ben's name. Their shared breath was as soft and perilously close to tearing as flowers strung along razorwire.

Gradually, graceful in her greed, Rey lowered herself down until Ben was fully inside her. He thrust his hips up as she sank down, a movement made on pure instinct. They stayed there, unmoving, catching their breath, before Ben slid his hands down to the back of her thighs and carefully lifted her. Rey followed the movement, then set the pace by sliding down again.

On it went like this, Ben guiding her up, Rey moving down, until Ben shifted his hold onto her hips, holding Rey steady as she rode him. There were no words to describe how this felt--the wholeness of it, the fullness, how right and good and warm, yet still so hungry for more. Rey had never understood the words "heartsick with desire" before until this moment. Those tattered romances she and Rose liked to read said it often, but the meaning never clicked into place before now.

As Rey quickened the pace, Ben moaned, low and helpless, almost like a whine. Her name was tangled up in the sound, and in response she kissed his throat, right over the flutter of his heart.

Rey lifted one of Ben's hands from her hip and held it to her own heart so he could feel their matching beat. When she trusted herself to look into his eyes again, Rey was greeted with a look of such wonder and love that her heart nearly broke from the simple act of witnessing it. She kissed him again hard and fierce, again and again, hoping that by sharing his breath Rey could distract herself from a swell of tears.

For a long, delightful while, the only sound in the room were Ben’s thighs meeting Rey's, skin smacking skin, thrust after thrust. Rey continued to keep the pace, delighting in how he surrendered to her completely. That couldn't be easy for him, yet here he was, doing exactly that. For her.

Something warm and gentle unfurled from low in Rey's belly and unraveled like ribbons through her thighs and between her legs. She arched up, her moan loud enough to fill the room. Ben pulled his hands off her waist and cupped her breasts, pushing them together as he lavished them with kisses, soft and slow and utterly devoted.

The warmth along Rey's nerves brightened from embers to fires, and she moved faster, riding him hard enough to make the bed shake. Once Ben's breath started to quicken, turning into sharp, rasping gasps, she skimmed her nails through his hair and gently pulled back his head so she could look him in the eye.

“Do you feel it too?" she asked, her question briefly interrupted by a gasp. "Like--like you're about to--?"

Rey stopped, not knowing the proper word for what she meant. Ben understood what her silence meant. He nodded, unable to speak. Rey felt his hands tremble as he grabbed her by the waist again and pulled her down, harder, faster. He thrust into Rey with equal force, meeting her strength for strength, until all she could do was cling to him, her moans long and low and needy.

Rey rocked forward and let out a low cry, gasping her way to and through her climax. She gave herself over completely to Ben's hands and strength, letting him set the pace as he held her still and continued to thrust into her. His movements matched the flutters of pleasures that made her hips sway, and she let him draw out her orgasm for as long as her nerves could stand it.

Ben’s climax, when it came, was low and heavy, announced with a groan. He lifted Rey up with one hand, took himself in his fist with the other, and stroked himself to finish. Long wet streaks of white landed on Rey's thigh and the twisted, sweat-damp tangle of sheets. She couldn't help but notice just how much of it there was--and all of it for her.

Ben took in a long breath and raised his eyes to Rey's face. "Thank you," he said.

Rey blinked at him, confused. "For... what?"

"For--well, that." He gestured at their bodies, slick with sweat and desire. "It was good. Really good." He paused. "... I liked it a lot."

Rey's face burned. "I... liked it, too." She offered him a smile.

Ben's head fell back against the pillow with a light thud. His face was so soft, so serene, that Rey's heart almost hurt to look upon it. She settled against him, eager to be held and cradled, regardless of their current sweaty condition. Ben wrapped her in a tight embrace, and they spent the next few moments catching their breath, their hearts slowing to a steadier pace.

Then, when the silence became too much to bear, Rey lifted her head and pressed her fingers to Ben's cheek. "Ben?"

He opened his eyes and gazed at her, his dark eyes warm and tender. "Yeah?"

"Can I--" Rey stopped herself. No, that was too vulnerable. Never mind that she'd just had all eight inches of Ben inside her; talking was always the hardest way to bare a heart. "Do you want to stay like this? Together. Here. Not just in the bed but just with--with me?"

Ben studied Rey's face for a long, quiet moment, as if committing every detail of the moment to memory. Fear trickled through Rey and cut like a knife. She half expected him to pull back, stand up, and leave--or worse, push her away. It was an irrational fear, but all the worst fears are. All she wanted was to lay here in the quiet and half lit room, sharing the warmth that she and Ben had worked so hard to create.

Ben did not move. He did not leave her, did not push her away, and it was in that moment Rey realized she would never have to beg him to stay.

“I’m right where I wanna be,” he said, brushing her hair from her face. He smiled at her, showing his dimples.

Rey sighed. "So am I," she whispered, and turned her head to kiss his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me writing this before i start writing a totally-not-a-reylo novella to post on amazon to soothe our anger and grief lmao


End file.
